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Mark Trail, 1/13/16

Gabe, I’m sure you’re a very distinguished chiropterologist, and your skill at delicately plucking bats off of cave walls is unsurpassed, but you don’t know anything about selling magazines, OK? If America’s magazine-reading public (mostly airline passengers and people who accidentally clicked the “auto-renew” box on Magazines.com six years ago) see a big story in Woods and Wildlife about a healthy bat colony, they’re not going to think “Oh no! We need to act now to fight white-nose syndrome, probably by allocating millions of tax dollars to whatever university has Gabe on the faculty!” No, they’re gonna think “Wow, look at all those plump, healthy bats. Plenty more where those came from. Bet we could eat ’em, or mine ’em for coal, somehow.” If you want to move hearts, you need to show some full-on bat devastation. I dearly hope this plot climaxes with Mark carefully calibrating his punches to only stun the bats for the photographer, who then daintily daubs talcum powder on their noses for a heartrending but entirely fraudulent cover shoot.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/13/16

At one point in Alan Moore’s Watchman comics series, the psychopathic vigilante Rorschach is captured and arrested. Physically slight, he’s hassled on his first day in prison, but swiftly and brutally ends his first fight by grabbing a pan of hot grease from the cafeteria line and dousing his attacker’s face, leaving him screaming in agony. As the other prisoners look on in horror, he growls his most memorable line: “I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me!” I just thought of that when reading this strip, probably for no particular reason.

Gil Thorp, 1/13/16

Gil Thorp’s basketball season plot has been snoresville so far, but is it about to involve some mid-game pantsing? I could get behind a rash of tit-for-tat pantsing leading to a new record for technical fouls in the Valley Conference.

Judge Parker, 1/13/16

Sorry, American “linguist”! You’ve no doubt done seen and done awful things in the name of protecting your country from the shadows, but Katherine wants that step-grandchild real bad, so it looks like you’ll be dying alone in a Serb prison!

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Panel from The Lockhorns, 1/10/16

I love the way Leroy is delicately leaning up against the bookcase, but why do you suppose he’s idly thumbing through the thesaurus? Is this meant to indicate that he’s been waiting so long that he’s resorted to reading reference books for entertainment? Or maybe we’re meant to realize that his marital hell has so scarred him that he no longer has the vocabulary to describe it, and he’s desperate for new words that will truly convey the depths of his emotional torment.

Marvin, 1/10/16

Sure, I have a whole blog about comic strips, and sure, I complain about Marvin and his poop jokes about once a week on average, but there are still limits to how much space I allow the comics to occupy in my skull. For instance, I can’t remember whether Marvin’s grandparents who had to move into chez Marvin when they lost all their retirement savings are supposed to be Jeff’s parents or Jenny’s. And I refuse to look it up! You can’t make me! Even though knowing the answer would probably better help me get the family dynamics that establish the nuances of this strip, in which Grandpa opens his heart with Jeff and is cruelly mocked in return!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/10/16

Haha, of course Welton Green is part of Dolly Pierpoint’s sprawling mafia empire! Of course this guy knows all about Sarah and is probably under strict orders to let admit her! “The test is happening right now! Are you ready? Here it comes!” [winks exaggeratedly and hands Sarah a check]

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Crankshaft, 1/8/16

The newspaper comic strip is an art form with a dilemma: each strip must, to a certain extent, stand on its own; but unless it’s a pure gag-a-day strip like the Far Side, it must also make use of a library of tropes, running gags, plots, and character elements to round out its world and live up to its full potential. But in doing so it risks confusing or alienating new readers. For instance, we all know that today’s strip is just the typical Crankshaft Has Built A Fire That Has Gotten Out Of Control gag that this strip loves, layered over with the usual inexplicable Funkyverse melancholy, but can you imagine if this were the first Crankshaft you ever read? “Oh my God!” you’d think. “That poor family! Their house is burning down! Maybe a loved one is trapped inside! Look at their stricken faces — they have nowhere else to go, and it’s so cold out!” Tomorrow’s inevitable cranky old man joke would leave you very confused indeed.

Beetle Bailey, 1/8/16

You know, even when laws change, it takes a long time for people’s attitudes about themselves to follow suit. In other words, even though Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed more than four years ago, Sgt. Snorkel is going to have to drink a lot of beer before he can really enjoy himself at this leather bar.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/8/16

No need to look so alarmed, Morgans! Welton Green may not be comfortable with sociopathic students, but it has no policy banning narcissists.